Explore gharanas, instruments and artforms on KalaSudha

KalaSudha's Indian classical music gharanas list is the Explore Gharanas page, where you can filter the schools by type and era. Instruments have guides on the instruments page, and the vocal, instrumental and dance artforms each have a page of their own.

A gharana is a school of style in Indian classical music or dance. The site's Music menu calls gharanas "stylistic traditions".

Explore the gharanas

1. Open the Explore Gharanas page from Gharanas in the Music menu.
2. For a quick start, use Quick Discovery: Featured Gharanas, Vocal Traditions, Percussion Traditions or Historic Lineages.
3. Type a school's name in Search gharanas.
4. Under Gharana type, choose Vocal, Instrumental, Dance, Tabla, Sitar or Sarod.
5. Use the Era timeline to see the gharanas of one period. It starts at the early 18th century.

Gharana pages do not appear in site search, so start from this page.

Read about an instrument

Open the instruments page, or Instrument guides in the footer, and pick an instrument. Each instrument page, such as the sitar page, has these sections:

• History & Origins, on where the instrument comes from.
• Construction & Craftsmanship, with the materials, the construction process and maintenance and care.
• Playing Techniques, on the way players use it.
• Explore the discipline, which leads to the artform the instrument belongs to.

Videos of the instrument sit on the same page.

Explore an artform

The vocal, instrumental and dance pages each cover the heritage of the artform and its Artistic Philosophy. Each also lists the Upcoming Events for that artform, and you reach them from Disciplines in the Academy menu.

How these pages connect

The pages link across. An instrument page leads to its artform through Explore the discipline. On All Artists, filter by Gharana to see the artists of one school. A raga page links to recordings of that raga, and What does a raga page on KalaSudha tell me? walks through one. For an artist's albums and videos, read Find an artist's albums and videos on KalaSudha.

Related help

New to Indian classical music? Start with I'm new to Indian classical music. Where do I start? For anything else, email [email protected] and we reply within one working day, or see Contact us.